Line’s sales chief talks to Harry Kemble about a strong start to 2023
For the first time in three years, since the pandemic brought the world to a standstill, the cruise sector is enjoying what many would call a traditional wave season.
Cruise lines have reported strong sales periods to kick-start 2023 and among them is Royal Caribbean International. According to Stuart Byron, sales director for the UK, Ireland and Spain, staff are relishing coping with the high demand.
“It’s crazy busy for us right now – it’s like the busy of old,” he says. “During the pandemic it was busy, but that was driven by operational demands. Now we’re having positive conversations about new bookings. It’s exciting the demand is high again.”
Byron admits there was still some uncertainty ahead of wave as everyone was unsure what to expect amid the cost-of-living crisis, but he is now hailing a bumper start to the year.
“We absolutely planned for wave like it used to be, but you’re never sure what to expect,” he says.
“So far it’s looking incredibly positive and we hope this strong start to wave season continues.”
Sales boom
Byron refuses to get ahead of himself when asked about future booking levels. “You hear the talk about the cost-of-living crisis and rising interest rates, which makes you a little cautious, but we’re significantly up since Christmas,” he says.
“We start our ‘wave clock’ on Boxing Day, so we’ve had two full weeks [since then]. After the first week we were significantly up, and after week two we were up again.
“It’s been a strong start for both direct and trade channels.”
Byron points out how direct sales were “a little stronger” in the week after Boxing Day due to many customers being away from home and from their local travel agent.
“But now we’re seeing the trade’s sales performance kick back in,” he adds. “Of course, it’s fantastic to see the higher booking volume, but also the high rate. The average daily rate is up. It’s all performing well.”
UK-based Anthem of the Seas is “absolutely smashing it” in terms of bookings, says Byron, adding that sales on the refurbished Explorer of the Seas, sailing from Ravenna, were being helped by the line’s air charter programme. Royal has seven ships – including Explorer, Symphony of the Seas and Odyssey of the Seas – visiting 25 European countries in 2023.
“A lot of guests want to book everything together,” he explains.
“There’s a level of reassurance people want. That’s why we put the flight programme in place.
“Alongside our charter programme to Ravenna, we’ve more than doubled our seat allocation for this year compared to what we had in 2019 – demonstrating our commitment to the trade by providing all of the tools to support their sales efforts.”
2023 outlook
Byron highlights that demand for long-haul fly-cruises is also returning.
“During the pandemic, Americans could not travel to Europe so easily and we sourced incredible numbers from the UK to support our European programmes,” he says.
“We’re also now seeing demand picking up for other parts of the world. We’re seeing demand for Australia, Alaska and Asia. It does feel like it’s getting back to normal.”
He believes the sector can be confident about the future because of the past few years.
“I think that 2023 will be unusual in terms of trends as booking levels fall into a rhythm,” he adds.
“There are always going to be bumps in the road. Just look at that period last year when Boris Johnson announced his resignation, Liz Truss came in and quickly went out, and Rishi Sunak became PM and tried to ease the cost-of-living pressure.
“Normally, those events would have happened in the space of a few years, but the country took it all in its stride because we’ve become so used to dealing with adversity.”
Growing team
Rather than cutting its trade sales team during the pandemic, Byron recruited more staff. Since 2020, he and head of sales Torey Kings-Hodkin have expanded the key account manager team by 50%.
Royal added a third key account manager in Ireland and recruited a dedicated key account manager to support UK-based homeworkers.
Today, across the UK and Ireland, each key account manager looks after around half the number of agencies they would have prior to the pandemic due to the larger team.
“We grew our team so that key account managers were able to focus in more detail on a smaller number of accounts and spend more quality time with agents learning what makes their businesses tick,” he says.
“We have more key account managers because the trade is a really critical part of our business.”
Byron is now targeting a training manager because of the number of “new faces in travel”, adding: “We’re seeing a lot of engagement in that regard.”
New home-based agents were welcomed at the line’s first homeworkers’ conference, held in London last month. “The conference focused on finding ways of working with the new trade post-Covid,” he adds.
“Homeworking is a growing channel because of Covid. Across the board, we’re seeing homeworkers play a more important role.”
Last year, Royal hired Luke Vanderhoeven as key account manager to oversee homeworkers and appointed Caroline Barnett as sales development manager to support him.
New-to-cruise surge
Byron has seen not only a wealth of new agents join the sector since the pandemic but also plenty of new-to-cruise customers.
He says some of those who snapped up one of the 999 free cabins made available to emergency workers on Anthem of the Seas during the sector’s restart have now become repeat customers. “In cruise, we’ve had this age-old battle about new-to-cruise passengers, but the benefit of the UK domestic season is it encouraged more people to try it for the first time,” he says.
Royal Pitch
Royal – winner of the Best Mainstream Cruise Company accolade at last week’s Globe Travel Awards – has pledged to award £200,000 in marketing spend to agents who entered its Royal Pitch competition.
The fourth and final round of pitches are currently being submitted, with the next edition of the Royal Pitch due to start later in 2023.
“We’ve given agents opportunities to speak to the whole UK and Ireland team at Royal,” Byron says.
“It’s about lifting the curtain and giving them access to even more resources at head office. It can help stimulate a whole lot of questions and new opportunities from the agents.
“We’ve seen booking volumes and values increase as a result of the competition. It has enabled us to offer personalised support to these agents and that’s the real benefit of this competition.”
As wave booking levels return, forging closer ties with innovative and creative agents is clearly central to the strategy of Byron and his Royal team.